Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Can the Republicans accept defeat?

Opinion polls suggest that today's American presidential election will be settled by a narrow margin. According to the great majority of pollsters, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are set to win similar shares of the popular vote, but Obama is likely to prevail in enough states to secure a majority of electoral college votes and book another four years in the White House.

Given the tightness of the race for President, it is understandable that Democrats and Republicans are both predicting that their man will win today. Opinion polls are not infallible, as John Kerry learned when George Bush beat him in 2004.

What is surprising is not Republican optimism about today's result, but the sheer scale of the victory that many of Romney's supporters expect. On the right of the Republican Party, especially, pundits and grassroots activists alike have been predicting that Romney will win by a landslide.

According to conservative pundit Michael Berone, Obama will take a thumping, as Romney prevails even in traditionally Democratic states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Romney needs 270 electoral college votes to win the keys to the White House; Berone expects him to score 315. Dick Morris, a former adviser to Bill Clinton who has drifted rightwards over the last decade, is even more optimistic. He predicts that Romney will take 325 electoral college votes, 'in the biggest surprise in recent American history'.

Over at Pajamas Media, a sort of watering hole for right-wing bloggers, almost everyone seems to expect a blow-out win for Romney, and some commenters are predicting that Obama will lose all but a handful of east and west coast states. If the Republican pundits and activists are correct, then an awful lot of opinion polls must be wrong.

On the rare occasions when they have considered the possibility of an Obama victory, right-wing pundits have insisted that such an outcome could only be the result of a massive, coordinated campaign of fraud by the Democratic Party and other sinister forces. Conspiracy theorists already accuse Obama's team of putting corpses on electoral rolls, taking billions in secret donations from foreign regimes, and planning to bus Mexicans across the border to polling booths.

To understand the gap between electoral reality and Republican expectations, we have to consider the ideological bunker the American right has built for itself in the Obama era. For the last five years Republicans have accused Obama of being at odds, both personally and politically, with the great majority of the American people. Obama's cosmopolitan background, academic experience, and popularity in 'socialist' Europe have all been cited as evidence of his 'anti-American' character. Mildly social democratic policies like Obamacare, quantitative easing and the bailout of General Motors are said to reflect the President's alien heritage and affinities.

Grassroots Republican groups have insisted that Americans voted for Obama out of ignorance in 2008, and that now that they understand his anti-American nature they will reject him decisively. The right believes that Obama's only reliable long-term support comes from 'minority' groups which are themselves at odds with mainstream American culture and values - groups like intellectuals, liberals, feminists, illegal immigrants, gays, Muslims, and racially obsessed African Americans.

Because they have equated their ideology with mainstream America, it is very hard for the Republican right to appreciate that Obama retains considerable support across their country. If they acknowledged that half of Americans still back Obama, then right-wingers would have to recognise that their own political programme, with its emphasis on moral conservatism and economic liberalism, is increasingly unpopular. Bans on abortion, the teaching of Creationism in schools, and tax cuts for the wealthy are hardly winning policies in an increasingly diverse country stricken by unemployment and a declining manufacturing sector.

It is interesting to compare the attitude of right-wing Republicans to Obama with the response of left-leaning Democrats to George Bush junior. When Bush won the 2004 election, many Democratic activists reacted not by denying the result, but by pondering the nature of the American electorate. In an influential book called What's the Matter with Kansas? Thomas Frank argued that cultural conservatism had led many white working class Americans to defy their economic interests and vote for Bush.

Democratic activists have generally been able to acknowledge and analyse electoral defeats because they are not committed to equating their politics with the culture and values of the American majority. The Republican right, by contrast, has become convinced that its ideas are identical with those of mainstream America, and that its political opponents are inherently anti-American.

If Obama wins today's election, then the Republican right will face the choice of either acknowledging reality, or else hunkering down in the ideological bunker it has built over the past five years. It is likely that many Republicans will convince themselves that Obama stole the election from their candidate. A large minority of Americans will consider a democratically elected President an illegitimate usurper. The delusions of the Republican Party do not bode well for democracy.

Dumbass…you see, readers, this is a good example of an individual who (as reported by God in His Bible) has the mark of the beast IN his forehead.Now, if he actually does some work (like passing out fliers,etc) for satan, he has the mark of the beast IN his hand.Not a tattoo or computer chip..no, it’s thinking about the beast or doing things on the beast’s behalf.There are two beasts..one is satan himself, the other is the political one-world government headed up by satan.(Rev, ch 13)So thank you for being an example for me, I appreciate that.

This evening on Fox News, long-time anchor Bill O'Reilly, explaining why Obama was doing better in the voting than he anticipated, unleashed one of the most nakedly racist outbursts heard on national television by a prominent commentator. After first claiming that "50 percent of the people... want stuff" and thus vote for Obama because he gives it to them, O'Reilly added:

"Obama wins because it's not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is the minority. People want things."

In other words, now that the majority in America is no longer white, the majority are lazy, dependent and eager for free government handouts. That is the type of commentary one would hear in the swamps of white supremacist websites. Even for Fox News, this is toxic and repellent.

The only way a person can vote from Obama is if they are stupid, ignorant or evil. The percentage in the evil camp seems to grow every day. These are not worthwhile human beings. Anyone who would vote because they’ve been lied to about free birth control when 23 million Americans cannot find jobs is just sick. Absolutely sick.

And the MSM? They can go to hell. They’re all traitors to the country. Those liars and defamers need to be tarred and feathered. They don’t deserve the respect or courtesy of decent people. They’re filth and they should be treated as such.

'Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential challenger in 2008 and one of the undeclared leaders of the Tea Party movement, told Fox she could not believe "the majority of Americans would do this". She added: "It's a perplexing time for many of us right now."

how did they change women from demure people who Norman Rockwell would paint images of kind old granny to a woman who exercised on a stripper pole, has a tongue stud, high odds she has an STD, and willing to sell out the future, her children and mates to the state?

Someone wrote a book and the publishers published it. the feminine mystique…

when that started wearing off, what did they do to get the women back up on that same horse? write a book… “the rules”…

how did they get African Americans to forget Landry parish, the murder of their own kind by their saviors today, and so on? they paid blacks to write revisionist history that they read that conveniently left out the history (you can blatantly see it at the NAACP site)

I said… what books did lenin readwhat books did obama read.

what helped change our state?book by Zinn?how about fukyama and The End of History and the Last Man?

i guess if we still listened tot he old dead white guys, we would realize that <the pen is mightier than the sword"

the horse has left the barnand O’Learys cow has tipped over the lanternCortez has burned the boatsand the trade of power for perks that can be rescinded, has been completed.

by the way…there is no cavalry, because we were the cavalry – ie. there is no cavalry to rescue the cavalry who is supposed to rescue the hero, as there are also no more heroes.

the Fait Accompli has been reached.now, was i so negative, or was i prescient?

(actually given the beatings and 17% violent crime in crease by groups beating on whites males (and others too), Charles Manson and the Family, along with the Weather Underground who did that brinks job to create a race war and civil conflict, were prescient!!!)

so has anyone else figured out how it all works? after all, you cant fix a complicated thing without knowing how it works, can you? you cant use imagination to get to knowing, it takes experience. so i am wondering how well the effort was to fix and change the course turned out by the people who in their majority decided NOT to learn how what they want to fix worked, what is protocols were, and how to be heard..

can ANYONE tell me what your leader was reading or the others? shall i go back a few years to show you when i had already showed everyone this stuff and it was not accepted?

(as you may notice, i am now able to link back to the prior times when i brought up what people are figuring out, but years had to pass first. wandering around in the wilderness with your hand out and eyes closed in the dark is no way to get to a goal, is it?)

Obama Reading list..

The Post American world – read 2008Team of Rivals: the politics and genius of lincoln read 2008Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Guilded age

by the way… ONE of them was a book i recommended highly about the CIA, and Russia and KGB games in Afghanistan. Obama read that same book no one here did back in 2008

Ghost Wars: the secret history of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin laden from the soviet invasion to September 2001

[anyone want to know what a ghost war is? its a covert war of lies and games instead of a frontal war where the other is not ambiguous and proof is lacking]

Collected poems of Derek WalcottOf course most here have no idea of who he is, but take a look: walcott

to read walcott is to get to bronsky and sontag and others… who LOVED The soviet revolution like obamas uncle.

while most of you didnt read what i was saying to read OBAMA WAS READING the history and the stuff…

Defining moment: FDRs hundred days and the Triumph of HOPE [Triumph of the Will? and hope?]

Common Wealth: economics for a crowded planet by Jeffery D Sachs (the socialist communist thinker that writes for scientific american)

Netherland by joseph oneilWhat is what? by eggers

Hot, fat, crowded: why we need a green revolution and how it can renew america

the way home by george polecanosplainsong by hanutlush life by princejohn Adams by D McCullough

lessons in disaster: McGeorge bundy, and the path to war in vietnam (bundy was president of the ford foundation)

the rise of theodore roosevelt by morris in 2009… (and the press reads the same books when he does the way wacko women read what opra tells them to, and suddenly the press shifts as the ideas get included in their writing and inspires them and you see it reflected. thats how i knew what they were reading. he read it, they read it, they leaked it in their words and imagry)

a few corrections leithhausertinkers by paul hardingfreedom by franzenpresident reagan: the role of a lifetime dec 2010

the thousand autumns of jacoe de zoet

this last one i find interesting as it would put him back with the dutch, indonesia, japan and the convert i said to read which freda utley. if you try to find the book now, the dreams you have, google hides it. you have to know exactly what you want or you get noise

Our Kind of Traitor by john le carrePhilosophy & Literature by Peter S ThompsonParting The Water by Taylor BranchThe Golden Notebook by Doris LessingCutting for Stone by Abraham VergheseTo the End of the Land by David GrossmanInvisible Man by Ralph Ellison Song Of Solomon by Toni Morrison

where do elite people get their ideas from?where did they get the idea for marxism?where did they learn that X was good? from books in college?

shall i quote marx i am sure you know and are conveniently forgetting to make your point?

How Lenin Studied MarxNadezhda Krupskaya

Lenin did a tremendous amount to illuminate the path of struggle of the Russian proletariat with the light of Marxism. Fifty years have passed since the death of Marx, but for our Party Marxism is still the guide to action. Leninism is merely a further development of Marxism, a deepening of it.

how did lenin even know about marx?oh yeah… he got a copy of his book

your wrong sergey, and you know itand you know i am right.

how did solitzhen have an effect on the soviet system. by speeches? or by the gulag archepeligo?

how did anne frank influence a world? a diary, a book, otherwise, she would be one of the nameless millions… right?

how did gramsci redeem himself from prison?his nine volumes

how did hitler redeem himself from prison?mein kampf

oh.. and since they all like hegelian ideas, how did they learn about them and knwo what ideas hegel had? oh yeah, his book.

so tell me how you can disseminate a strategy to a group with no de facto leader but get them on the same page?

a book… that they read and are influenced by

in fact.. here is a list of the 100 most influential books in history, you tell me how many died and all that related to them, and let me also know if the book came AFTER or before (and note how many you know and can tell me the ideas in and we can talk about!)

I ChingHebrew BibleIliad and OdysseyUpanishadsTao Te ChingAvestaAnalectsHistory of the Peloponnesian WarHippocrates worksAristotle worksHerodotus historiesThe Republic (plato)Elements (euclid)DhammapadaAeneid (virgil)De Rerum NaturaAllegorical Expositions of the Holy LawsNew TestamentParallel Lives (plutarch, not the tv show)Annals, From the Death of the Divine AugustusGospel of TruthMeditations (aurelius not later philsopher)Outlines of PyrrhonismEnneadsConfessionsQuranGuide for the PerplexedKabbalahSumma TheologiaeThe Divine ComedyIn Praise of FollyThe PrinceOn the Babylonian Captivity of the ChurchGargantua and PantagruelInstitutes of the Christian ReligionOn the Revolutions of the Heavenly SpheresEssays Michel de MontaigneDon QuixoteHarmony of the Worlds (Kepler)Novum OrganumFirst Folio (Shakespeare)Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World SystemsDiscourse on MethodLeviathanGottfried Leibniz WorksPenséesEthicsPilgrim’s ProgressMathematical Principles of Natural PhilosophyEssay Concerning Human UnderstandingTreatise Concerning the Principles of Human KnowledgeThe New ScienceA Treatise of Human NatureEncyclopédie (diderot)A Dictionary of the English LanguageCandideCommon Sense (paine)The Wealth of NationsThe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman EmpireCritique of Pure ReasonConfessions (Rousseau)Reflections on the Revolution in FranceA Vindication of the Rights of WomanAn Enquiry Concerning Political JusticeAn Essay on the Principle of PopulationPhenomenology of SpiritThe World as Will and IdeaThe Course in Positive PhilosophyOn War (Carl von Clausewitz)Either/OrCommunist ManifestoCivil DisobedienceThe Origin of SpeciesOn LibertyFirst PrinciplesExperiments on Plant HybridizationWar and PeaceA Treatise on Electricity and MagnetismThus Spoke ZarathustraThe Interpretation of DreamsPragmatismRelativityThe Mind and SocietyPsychological TypesI and ThouThe Trial

your right sergey, all those ideas above, and the complexity of them, we all know them because of the cohesive strategies that came before them.

look over that list..there is so much there that is you and me, and others that it would suprise you. that we reference and quote and speak in parrotisms from that, and yet, you say the book is not the thing?

the american experiment was the result of thebooks the founders read which was a majority of the above.

the kids today, have read almost none of the above list except for the marxists tracts and often they just pretend they read it!!!

for some reason, call me silly sergey, but i beleive that if plato didnt write a book, you would never know what his ideas were as a collection from the republic.

and the road to serfdom didnt prevent an earlier communist finality..

after all, it was the cohesive plan of Friedrich von Hayek that convinced everyone.

no. its the book

the book is the way to get someones undivided attention for hours to listen to you talk and not be able to talk back to you

your turn to refute this.please give examples

(note that you learn strategy and those things you say are needed – from books)